President Trump

“They’re Animals”: Trump Encourages Cops to Get “Rough” with “Thugs”

Donald Trump speaks to law enforcement officials on the street gang MS-13, in Brentwood, NY, July 28, 2017.

From AP/REX/Shutterstock.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions may be the second least-loved person in Donald Trump’s White House, but he remains as devoted as ever to taking the Justice Department back to the 1990s: rolling backBarack Obama’s efforts to curb police abuse, restarting the war on drugs, calling for harsher sentencing, and scaling back the department’s Obama-era focus on civil rights issues. He also appears to have a spiritual ally in the president, who flew to Long Island on Friday to stir up some good old-fashioned suburban panic over a mostly Salvadorian street gang known as MS-13.

“They butchered those little girls. They kidnap. They extort. They rape, and they rob. They prey on children. They shouldn't be here,” Trump told a crowd of law enforcement officers, claiming that New York’s “peaceful parks and beautiful, quiet neighborhoods” have been transformed into “blood-stained killing fields,” and that the threat hadn’t been taken seriously in the past. “They're animals,” he added. (The New York Police Department boycotted his appearance.)

While Obama pushed to reform police departments around the country in the wake of several high-profile fatal shootings of black men by police, Trump suggested police shouldn’t worry about roughing up suspects. “When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon—you just see them thrown in, rough—I said please don’t be too nice,” the president said. He had been expected to discuss his administration’s crackdown on violent crime, immigration, and efforts to eliminate MS-13. Instead, the speech turned into another freewheeling political rally for the president, who digressed from the topic at hand to offer his own advice on how police should treat criminals. “Like when you put somebody in the car and you are protecting their head, you know? The way you put your hand over . . . like don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head, I said, ‘You can take the hand away, O.K.,’ ” he said, prompting laughter and loud cheers from the phalanx of officers behind him.

“For years and years, [laws have] been made to protect the criminal,” the president added. “Totally protect the criminal, not the officers. You do something wrong, you’re in more jeopardy than they are. These laws are stacked against you. We’re changing those laws.”

At various other points in his speech, Trump claimed that the previous administration hadn’t supported police, and touted the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Neil Grosuch. “Your Second Amendment is safe, your Second Amendment is safe—I feel very good about that,” he said, referring to Gorsuch’s appointment. “Wasn’t looking so good for the Second Amendment, huh? If Trump doesn’t win, your Second Amendment is gone.”

He also veered off topic, to lament the failed Obamacare repeal vote that took place early on Friday. “We’re going to get it done. We’re going to get it done,” Trump told the crowd, adding, “Let Obamacare implode.”